Poetry by Candice M. Kelsey

      Emma K Alexandra CC




Candice
 
I too dislike it.
Embarrassed by the effort
a mouth exerts
to say my name,
to pronounce what amounts to me--
 
seven little signifiers
clawing the throat
like seven days of destruction.
 
A mother is a world
that gives as well as takes.
 
My other name--Rotten rotten rotten.
 
Waning into a sliver of self
I disappear beneath the phonetic expanse
fricative and voiceless. Float
the hard and soft of it.
 
Who can reach across the seas of mother and daughter?
 
Climb my silent e.
Birth something from the softer c.
Find the agency of i—like a stiff middle
finger to her d-n-a and land
like a cat on its feet
curling feral not fetal into hard C.
 
I am plosive. Click a half-moon trick
& unwrap this cocoon.
 
Remember a name is not a person
& Mother is just a name.

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​CANDICE M. KELSEY [she/her] is a poet, educator, and activist living bicoastally in L.A. and Georgia. Her work appears in Passengers Journal, Variant Literature, and The Laurel Review among others. A finalist for a Best Microfiction 2023, she is the author of six books. Candice also serves as a poetry reader for The Los Angeles Review. Find her @candice-kelsey-7 @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com.